Masquerade: Variations on a Theme
by FiveRivers
Summary: Stories inspired by the last Ectober 2019 prompt. Latest story: A dark alternate ending to Masquerade. What if Jazz hadn't caught the clone?


**So, as you guys may have noticed, the last Ectober prompt inspired me a lot. So much so that I've got all these extra masquerade stories rattling around in my head. The only way to get stories out of your head is to tell them, hence Masquerade: Variations on a Theme****This first chapter is a dark alternate ending of Masquerade, beginning with Jazz failing to capture Pollux. Later chapters may or may not be connected to that original story.****But note: dark.**

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Pollux twisted and narrowly dodged the thermos's capture field. How had Jazz known? How had she found out? He had tried so hard!

Danny's dream had been right all along.

He went intangible, and dove underground, where Jazz couldn't follow him, and didn't come up until he was several streets away. He wiped tears out of his eyes. Failure wasn't a new experience for him, but it wasn't one that he liked, and he couldn't go back to Fentonworks anymore. No more Jazz. No more Mom and Dad. No more Sam and Tucker.

Hopefully, Father wouldn't be too angry.

He shot towards home.

.

Although Pollux, like Danny, could push himself to speeds of over a hundred miles an hour, his distance traveling speed was more sedate. He did not return home until late at night, and the scene that met his eyes when he did was arguably worse than what he had fled from.

Police everywhere. Father arrested. Danny in an ambulance.

Pollux dithered. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what had happened.

Father would. He had to rescue Father.

Invisible, he swooped in, and plucked Father from the car. He flew away a safe distance and set Father down.

"What happened?" he asked.

Fathers response was unintelligible.

Oh. Pollux knew using that medicine had been a bad idea.

He chewed his lip, thinking. Father could not give him instructions. But Father had taught him well.

First, he needed to get Father to their safehouse, their hideout, then he would come back for Danny.

Danny fought at first, but Pollux got him calmed down. He read his corcore and found out what had happened on the way over.

It was hard to believe Father had attacked Danny like that. Danny's actions were understandable, in context, and so, so clever, but Father had been brutal.

It made Pollux feel uncomfortable.

Danny clung tight to Pollux as the flew to the safehouse. It was deep underground, and had neither doors nor windows, nor any way to access it except by phasing. It would not be suitable for Danny long-term, with his increased reliance on his astronomy Obsession, but for now it was safe.

They could stay here until Father got better.

.

Father did not get better, and Pollux was angry at him.

There was no way for Pollux to drain and reset the bracelets without putting Danny into stasis, and Pollux refused to put Danny into a stasis he could not revive him from. Danny had been shocked several times, even though he worked very hard to avoid using his powers. Danny was always so weak after being shocked. He always had nightmares, right after.

Father should have included a back-up option, a way for Pollux to take off the bracelets.

On the other hand, Danny seemed to be adapting to his new situation. He was always finding ways to help out around the hideout. He cooked, he cleaned, he tinkered in the hideout lab, and he was always so attentive, so affectionate. His mind was clearer. More focused.

He still sometimes pined for Amity Park, which sent Pollux into a depression of his own (he missed it). But those moments became rarer.

Father was not adapting.

.

Pollux stood over Father's unconscious body. Father had been getting worse, and worse. More and more hostile to poor Danny. Yesterday, he had attacked Danny again, and Pollux had made a descision. Father had to go into stasis.

As the stasis capsule hissed closed, Pollux promised he would follow what Father had taught him. That he would continue his research into how ghostly artifacts affected hybrids. That he would work to bring their family together.

.

Danny knew what was happening to him.

But he couldn't be upset about it, not while Pollux was here, because that would make Pollux upset. He couldn't make Pollux upset.

Slowly, at first, but then more quickly, Danny's Obsession had focused on and warped around Pollux. Pollux was the only one he could help, the only one he could make happy, the only one who could offer his Obsessions any relief.

He was training himself to be exactly what Pollux wanted. He was physically changing, too, to better fulfill his Obsessions. It scared him.

But only when Pollux wasn't there.

.

Pollux carried the artifacts into the hideout lab very carefully.

He had noticed Danny growing smaller, growing softer, and it had made him happy. His core had realized that Danny was safe, and he no longer needed to fight, that Pollux would protect him.

But the change had given Pollux an idea, a theory about how he might remove the bracelets. It was an artifact he and Father had once tested on another clone.

Danny rushed over from where he had been polishing a machine. Pollux didn't even know what that one did, but it made him happy to see Danny so industrious. Danny looked at the box he had brought, thoughts bright and curious.

Pollux ruffled Danny's hair.

"Are you ready to get those bracelets off, Cas?" asked Pollux. He alternated between calling Danny Danny and Danny Castor these days. Pollux liked the nickname, and Danny didn't seem to mind.

Danny nodded vigorously.

"Okay," said Pollux. He patted a nearby examination table. "Sit here, then."

Danny complied eagerly, and looked at Pollux with an air of expectation.

Pollux put on a pair of thick gloves, and opened the box of artifacts. From within, he plucked a soft black-furred teddy bear with shiny glass eyes. He gave the bear to Danny.

Danny looked at it, confused. But then the bear's eyes began to glow, and his closed halfway. The bear began to grow. Danny began to shrink, grow younger. When Danny and the bear were the same size, Pollux pulled the bear away.

The bracelets slipped off over Danny's newly small hands. Pollux tsked at the scars they left.

Danny blinked himself back to wakefulness, and looked down at himself. Something passed through him, something huge and epic that even Pollux could only see the surface of. Then- it was gone. Danny was brighter, softer, and more childlike than ever before. He smiled up at Pollux, and hugged him tightly.

Pollux's world revolved around Danny.

Danny's world revolved around Pollux.

A binary star.

Perfect.


End file.
